Over the years, as we have secured more and more vehicles, we have had to be more scientific in the way in which we utilise the space at the premises we occupy in Leigh, Croft, East Manchester, Blackburn, and more recently in East Cheshire. All of the restoration work is carried out at our Leigh depot, with all of the other depots being storage sites for preserved and future restoration projects.

Leigh, (Robertshaw Street)

Most of the restoration work is carried out at our Leigh depot. Most of our restored vehicles have had the extensive prepwork undertaken by our group members here, before the vehicle is sent away for final stages of work required to complete the restoration.

When we first moved into these premises
in 1992 they were in a particularly run down state and at that time we had a
considerable number of roof panels refitted and we undertook some work on
repairing the front folding doors and gave them a full repaint in black gloss
paint. Since that time, over the years various work has been carried out on the
roof and on the guttering and some years ago we had a roller shutter fitted to
the side entrance door.

What we embarked upon, in
2001, was a complete inspection of the roof. A number of new panels have been
fitted and certain aspects have been re-felted which has put the roof in a
better condition now than it has ever been in since we first occupied the
premises in 1992. We have also undertaken to have some further repair work done
to the wooden doors and they have been fully repainted for the first time since
we first occupied the premises in 1992.

Most important of all, we have always
had difficulty opening and closing the doors, because the metal channel that is
supposed to be on the floor guiding the doors along has been missing in places
since when we first secured the premises in 1992. However, we embarked upon a
programme in early 2001 to finally resolve this difficulty, and had made an
entirely new metal channel for the front of both sets of opening doors and this
has been put in place, welded and re-concreted in. The doors have been greased
and for the very first time they now open and close smoothly. We have also
fitted new vertical bolts that lock into the floor keeping the doors in place.

Consequently, since this work was
concluded in April 2001, taking buses out of the premises and returning them
again has been easier than ever before. Along with the repair work to the doors
and the roof, the premises really do look the best they have done for a long
time.

East Manchester

This is our secured external accomondation which
houses a number of vehicles awaiting restoration or acquired for spares
for future preservation.

The group accomondated this site in January 2016 following various adverts for accomondation following the lease closure at Stockport. The new site accomondates the group's ancillary vehicles, number of single deck and preserved double deck vehicles, including EX19 and 7501 which are awaiting restoration.

Previous Depots

Stockport

Following the closure of Wigan, a short term lease was acquired at Crossley Park, Stockport where a number of vehicles were stored. This included all of the ancillary vehicles, collection of Rover 800 and the site was ideal for double deckers.

Due to redevelopment, the vehicles has to move a number of times around the site before leaving the site on 31st January 2016. Most of the vehicles went to our East Cheshire Depot, with the remaining moved to East Manchester.

Wigan

This ex-council depot was undercover accomondation for our single deck vehicles like the National 105, Seddons, ancillary vehicles, and a couple of deckers were parked outside in the yard.

The society had to move out in 2010 due to safety issues with the building. Vehicles were moved to East Manchester and an temporary storage accomondation at Stockport (Crossley Park)